Dual labels of a blue and white fish and a Pacific Island maiden on a can of tuna market the beautiful tale of a group of islanders living largely in small states of the Pacific who are anxious about sustainable fishing.

Through an initiative eight-nation PNA group, which is home to 50 per cent of the world’s skipjack canning tuna, tinned fish with the PNA’s white Pasifical logo and the blue tuna label of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) are now retailed in Australia, New Zealand and in Europe.

Marine Stewardship Council label

The MSC label is the global gold standard for sustainable fisheries. It guarantees the tuna has been caught in free-schools, without the help of artificial measures like Fish Aggregate Devices (FADs).

“We’ve since had yellowfin (tuna) certified along with skipjack,” says Maurice Brown-john, commercial manager of the PNA secretariat. “We (the small PNA nations) are somewhere from 90 to 100% of the global supply of MSC certified skipjack and yellowfin MSC certified or potential supply. So we’re building up the global markets.
“Already this year we’re well over 50,000 tonnes. The key thing with this is we’re marketing it through Pacifical which is a joint venture marketing arrangement used exclusively for marketing PNA MSC products.
Just as Fiji Water is synonymous with Fiji, Pacifical is synonymous with PNA skipjack and yellowfin”, Mr Brownjohn said.
John West, one of the popular canned tuna brands in Australia, is now retailing PNA supplied tuna bearing the MSC label. More than 100 million cans are sold each year in Australia. John West is also selling these in New Zealand and there are plans to market the brand in Europe.
Brownjohn believes John West captures 45% of the canned tuna market in Australia. Customers can trace where tuna was caught.
Ludwig Kumoru, the new CEO of the PNA, said the eco-label deal with MSC is beginning to pay off for the eight island countries that are members of PNA, namely, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.
“It is really selling the Pacific,” says Kumoru. “When you scan the code on the can, it tells you which boat caught the tuna that is in the can, so its good marketing ..for the Pacific.”

Kumoru said the decision to establish an eco-label stemmed from a tuna conservation measure that bans the use of FADs between 3 to 4 months in a year in Pacific waters. To make up for the shortfall of tuna revenue during the ban period, PNA proposed the marketing of free-school tuna that can be retailed at premium price, in association with the MSC’s label.

“So it has worked in a positive way. They (fishing boats) focus on free schools because they know if they fish on free schools, they get more money. We are addressing the conservation issue and the industry is happy because they are getting a little bit more money,” adds Kumoru.